Transport Mode Choice for Residents in a Tourist Destination: The Long Road to Sustainability (the Case of Mallorca, Spain)

Abstract

Sustainable mobility policies may encounter social, economic, and cultural barriers to successful implementation that need to be assessed. In this sense, knowledge of the population’s mobility habits and their relationship with transport modes is particularly essential. Along these lines, a study was carried out of the patterns of transport modes chosen concerning various social and territorial variables on the island of Mallorca based on the most recent mobility surveys. The study shows that the choice of mode is influenced by a wide range of factors, such as gender, age group, motive for the trip, occupation, region of residence, duration of the trip, and proximity to Palma, the capital of the island. The results indicate that private vehicles are the most often chosen mode of transport. Private vehicles are mainly used by working men between 30 and 44 years old for journeys between home and work, which do not exceed 30 min and are preferably in areas close to Palma. Sustainable modes are little used, although they are mainly used by women, young people, and retired people for work purposes and for access to educational and health centers. The demand for transport generated by the resident population and tourist activity and the negative externalities generated by mobility in private vehicles are closely related on a municipal level (Pearson’s coefficient 0.84, p = 0.00). However, the modal distribution does not seem to be directly related to these factors. Instead, it develops a more conditioned distribution by access to rail transport infrastructures and other geographical factors. In recent years, the Balearic Islands’ public administration launched the Balearic Islands Sectorial Mobility Plan 2019–2026, which aims to promote sustainable modes and reduce the use of private vehicles. This plan represents a considerable economic investment, but will also require great institutional coordination and cultural changes in the population’s perception of mobility. The study shows that the implementation of sustainable modes on the island requires a global vision of mobility issues that integrates urban planning and tourism planning to make the land-use model more sustainable.

Defining the Balearic Islands’ Tourism Data Space: An Approach to Functional and Data Requirements

“…In this approach, it is interesting to consider the work of Parra-López and Martínez González [114]. The study of the lines of tourism research developed in island environ ments shows the need for these issues to be extensively analyzed in these environment Although most of the lines of research detected have been included in our study, the sin gularity of island environments is evident, and the complementarity of both studies i confirmed.…”

In general terms, discrete choice models are calibrated using data obtained from Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) surveys. In transportation planning, one of the main sources of data is the Origin/Destination (O/D) Survey, which is an R

“…Discrete choice model applications provide a good degree of predictability of user behavior and, therefore, have been widely used in the area of transport demand for decades [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. These models make use of data obtained from Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) techniques, in which the RP data represent choices effectively made by individuals and the SP data refer to choices considering a set of options in which hypothetical scenarios are presented to the consumer for him/her to indicate his/her option [12,13].…”

The Effectiveness of Improvement Measures in Road Transport Network Resilience: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…In addition, the adverse impact of unexpected events, e.g., natural disasters [1][2][3], terrorist attacks [4], severe climates [5], the COVID-19 pandemic, and major accidents [6], on RTNs is also becoming increasingly serious. Damaged RTNs decrease travel efficiency and result in significant societal economic losses during grid disturbances [7]. The capacity of RTNs to actively adapt in response to these unexpected events is called resilience [8].…”